Comet 123P/West-Hartley: an image (2 Jan. 2019)

We observed comet 123P/West-Hartley again, while it approaches the Sun (perihelion: next 5 Feb.). Here it is our latest image.

Comet 123P/West-Hartley: 1 Jan. 2019

The image above comes from the average of three, 300-seconds exposures, unfiltered, remotely collected with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit available at the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy. The robotic telescope tracked the apparent motion of Comet 123P, so stars left trails on the background. The image scale is 1.2″/pixel.

The comet shows a little, nice tail pointing WNW, as we saw last month, when we started our follow-up of this icy world. While this comet is not expected to become bright, we plan to observe it again in the upcoming months, so stay tuned.

If everyone reading this right now would donate something, our fundraiser would be done in a few days. Please, donate and receive unique, LIMITED EDITION set of images of stunning Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 1998 OR2, images of the International Space Station above Rome and more, specifically made for supporters like you!